Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is traveling to Canada this Saturday for a gathering of center-left politicians organized around a single question: how to defeat conservatives on pocketbook issues. The summit, organized by the Center for American Progress, will bring the Michigan Democrat together with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and other left-leaning figures from both sides of the Atlantic, all while Carney's government prepares to welcome its first shipment of Chinese-made electric vehicles under a new trade deal with Beijing.

The timing is hard to ignore. Slotkin, widely regarded as a prospective 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, is sitting down with a foreign leader whose government announced a "new strategic partnership" with China on January 16, 2026, and who has publicly argued for reducing Canada's economic dependence on the United States.

Semafor reported that the summit's stated focus is "how to battle right-wing politicians on affordability." Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, another name floated for the 2028 Democratic nomination, will also attend. CAP President Neera Tanden framed the event's purpose in blunter terms:

"How do we fight the authoritarian right?"

Tanden argued that Democrats could learn from Carney, who she said moved Canada's Liberal Party "to the right on some issues" and "surged in popularity." The message, stripped of its diplomatic polish: go abroad, study up, and bring the playbook home.

Obama in Toronto, Slotkin in Ottawa's orbit

Slotkin's trip follows another high-profile Democratic visit to Canada. Former President Barack Obama was set to deliver a keynote speech in Toronto on Friday, hosted by Canada 2020, a Canadian think tank that says it promotes a "more just, inclusive and forward-thinking Canada."

The back-to-back appearances give the impression of a coordinated Democratic charm offensive north of the border, one that happens to coincide with a period of deep friction between Ottawa and Washington over trade, tariffs, and Canada's pivot toward Beijing.

This is not the first time a prominent Democrat has drawn scrutiny for traveling abroad under controversial circumstances. Bill de Blasio traveled to Colombia with a far-left group flagged by the State Department for China ties, raising similar questions about judgment and allegiances.

Carney's China deal and the EV pipeline

The summit's backdrop matters at least as much as its agenda. In January, Carney announced what his government called a "new strategic partnership" with China. A government press release stated plainly that "China presents enormous opportunities for Canada" and that Ottawa seeks to diversify trade relationships and increase investment.

The agreement includes a provision allowing up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market at a most-favored-nation tariff rate of just 6.1 percent. The Canadian government said the arrangement is expected to spur Chinese joint-venture investment in Canada's automotive sector and expand the country's electric vehicle supply chain.

On May 7, the first batch arrived. ElectricVehicles.com reported that Geely-owned Lotus shipped 18 Chinese-made Eletre SUVs from Shanghai to Canada, the opening move in what could become a flood of subsidized Chinese vehicles into North America.

In an April 2026 address following his Liberal Party victory, Carney argued that many of Canada's "former strengths" tied to close economic relations with America "have become weaknesses." He added that "the U.S. has changed and we must respond" and warned against dependence on "one foreign partner."

That language was aimed squarely at the United States. And the senator from Michigan, a state whose economy runs on auto manufacturing, chose this moment to sit across the table from Carney and talk strategy.

National security warnings from both parties

The expansion of Chinese-made vehicles into North America has alarmed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. In December 2025, the House Select Committee on China held a hearing titled "Trojan Horse: China's Auto Threat to America." The warnings were bipartisan and specific.

Committee Chairman John Moolenaar described Chinese-made vehicles as "potential spy platforms with a kill switch inside." He said modern vehicles equipped with cameras, sensors, microphones, and internet connectivity systems could allow Beijing to collect sensitive information or disrupt transportation systems during a crisis.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), a Democrat, was equally direct. He said China had used:

"A familiar playbook of forced joint ventures, intellectual property theft, overproduction and dumping to dominate the auto sector."

Krishnamoorthi warned that Chinese electric vehicles were often priced "below what it would even cost to make a car." That kind of predatory pricing doesn't happen by accident. It happens when a state-backed industrial machine decides to crush foreign competitors.

The national security concerns extend beyond economics. Former British diplomat Charles Parton described cellular modules used in connected vehicles as "the gateway" to modern transportation systems and warned that China already supplies a large share of those components globally. Automotive software executive Peter Ludwig compared Chinese vehicles to "the same kinds of risks in the physical world that TikTok represents in the digital world."

These warnings came from a bipartisan congressional hearing. And yet Slotkin is heading to Canada to strategize with the prime minister who just opened the door to 49,000 of those very vehicles. The contradiction is not subtle.

Slotkin's record: controversy before the trip

The Canada trip is not Slotkin's first brush with controversy. She previously appeared in a video telling military personnel they could "refuse illegal orders," saying she was concerned about the military being used "against American citizens." She later acknowledged on ABC's This Week that, to her knowledge, Trump had not issued illegal orders.

That sequence, inflammatory suggestion first, quiet concession later, drew sharp criticism. Former CIA operations officer Bryan Dean Wright said on Fox News that Slotkin "knew exactly what she was putting together with her little propaganda video."

The pattern of Democratic lawmakers urging military personnel to defy orders has become a recurring flashpoint, raising questions about whether these calls reflect genuine legal concern or political theater designed to undermine executive authority.

Slotkin also urged Democrats to "f***ing retake the flag", language that, whatever its intended meaning, signals the kind of combative posture that plays well at progressive fundraisers and poorly in the Michigan precincts she needs to win.

The broader tensions between Democratic lawmakers and congressional leadership have only intensified in recent months. Speaker Johnson has called for the indictment of six Democratic lawmakers over allegations of serious misconduct, underscoring the depth of the rift.

Who's paying for the playbook?

The Center for American Progress organized the gathering. Breitbart News reported in July 2025 that CAP has received millions of dollars in annual funding from George Soros's Open Society Foundations. That funding relationship is worth noting when a Soros-backed think tank convenes Democratic presidential hopefuls and a foreign head of state to plot against the American right.

None of this is illegal. Politicians travel. Think tanks host conferences. Foreign leaders meet with American lawmakers. But the optics tell a story: a Michigan senator whose state depends on auto jobs is huddling with a Canadian prime minister who just cut a deal to let nearly 50,000 Chinese-made cars into his country, vehicles that bipartisan U.S. lawmakers have called spy platforms and economic weapons.

The summit's stated purpose is "affordability." But affordability for whom? Not for the Michigan autoworkers whose livelihoods depend on competing against state-subsidized Chinese manufacturers. Not for American taxpayers who fund the defense apparatus that monitors Chinese intelligence collection. And not for the consumers who may one day discover that the car in their driveway is, as one congressman put it, a platform with a kill switch.

Meanwhile, the Democratic bench keeps auditioning abroad. Democrats have drawn repeated criticism for symbolic gestures that clash with their own rhetoric, and this latest trip fits the pattern.

The real question

Slotkin wants to learn from Mark Carney. Carney's signature move so far has been to distance Canada from the United States and draw closer to China. If that's the model Democrats want to import, voters deserve to know before 2028.

The summit's organizers say they want to talk about fighting the right on affordability. But the facts on the ground, Chinese EVs priced below production cost, a new Beijing-Ottawa trade pipeline, bipartisan national security alarms, suggest the real lesson Carney has to offer is how to dress up economic surrender as strategic independence.

When a senator from America's auto heartland flies to Canada to take notes from a leader who just opened the gates to Chinese cars, the agenda writes itself. It just isn't the one on the program.